Old Magazines: September 1991

In anticipation of moving to more commodious quarters, I've spent the past few days sifting through all the magazines I've accumulated over the years with the aim of recycling the bulk of them. I'm trying to minimize how much we have to transport, so this has been a great opportunity to throw away out-dated and no longer important brochures and how-to's, most of which have been updated and made freely available on the tree-friendly Internet.

Our sexual mores can change in a matter of decades, but looking at the following Pentax ad from the September 1991 issue of the recently defunct Petersen's PHOTOgraphic magazine, apparently the same fate befalls our collective graphic arts sensibilities. Sheesh!

Here's something we won't see on the cover of any current magazine—a slide film showdown. I got pretty excited way back whenever the mags did this sort of test. As far as I know, Velvia and Kodachrome are either dead or moribund.

The September issue also featured a long Darkroom Basics article. Inside, to drum up sales, the magazine mentions that new subscribers are eligible to win a top-of-the-line Beseler enlarger. I think I'll add enlarger to the list already containing the ditto machine, typewriter, cassette deck, and the VCR.